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Flavio Risech-Ozeguera

Associate Professor of Law

Flavio Risech-Ozeguera, associate professor of law, holds a B.A. from the University of South Florida and a J.D. from Boston University, and was a Community Fellow in urban studies and planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Formerly a practicing attorney representing low-income clients and community organizations, he has taught at Harvard and Northeastern law schools and at the University of Massachusetts and Wesleyan University.

His interests include civil and human rights, transnational migrations, and Latino and Latin American studies with special focus on Cuba, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.

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War crimes, torture and genocides demonstrate all too frequently that "never again" remains an elusive ideal. What role does the international system of human rights and humanitarian law play in deterring abuses of power? We examine the debates over the definition, adjudication and punishment of such acts, and evaluate how effective domestic and international legal and extra-legal strategies can be in preventing such crimes in the future, redressing those that do occur, and shaping collective memory and reconciliation after the fact, often called transitional justice. The Nuremberg trial legacy, the ICC, and the approaches to justice after state violence in South Africa, Rwanda, the Balkans, Chile and Argentina, among others, will provide primary material for critical reflection. The course constitutes an introduction to international human rights discourses and to legal modes of analysis.

This course will examine the production of legal "others," through state policing of various kinds of borders, spatial as well as virtual, and including the creation of rightless and stateless populations. We will critique court opinions and statutes that attempt to define, regulate, contain, discipline and exclude (non)persons such as the undocumented worker/migrant, the refugee, the queer, the racialized and the "terrorist." Examples of this are US-led drone wars, extrajudicial state killings and extraordinary renditions of individuals, as well as discourses of the "guest-worker," the "illegal alien," the "enemy combatant," and the "insurgent." Readings in legal and political theory will help us deepen our understanding and help us develop critical stances.

The U.S.-Mexico border has been described as a "thin edge of barbwire...where the Third World grates against the First and bleeds." Nowhere else in the world is there such physical proximity of a post-industrial nation and a developing one. While capital, goods and managerial personnel freely cross the border under NAFTA, the Mexican worker is the target of conflicting policies aimed at securitizing the border and disciplining labor on both sides. The political and economic relationship between the two nations produces deeply problematic effects in each, driving migration and producing the archetypically Mexican "illegal alien" devoid of rights. Deeply held notions of racial, ethnic and national boundaries mark the social terrain, yet are challenged by the long history of transborder circuits and communities and their more recent explosive growth. Emphasizing historical analysis and contemporary theories of nationalism, governmentality, globalization, and transnationalism, the course will challenge students to rethink the meaning of the border, the place of Mexicans in the U.S., and the role of the U. S. in Mexico.

This course is an introduction to US constitutional law through an extended interrogation of the notion of equality. By reading historical analyses and court opinions that reflect and shape debates about the proper place of the State in queer people's bedrooms and lives, we will gain basic familiarity with modes of legal analysis, constitutional politics and the law as a historically contingent system of power. Until 2003, consensual sex between adult same-gender partners was a crime in many states. Most still prohibit same-sex marriages and refuse full legal personhood to the gender-queer and trans. We will examine and critique many of the legal arguments and political strategies that have been deployed to challenge this legal landscape of inequality, and question the normative assumptions of state regulation of sexuality and gender expression. The course will include readings of many of the key race, gender and sexual civil rights rulings of the Supreme Court on what it means to enjoy the "equal protection of the law" promised to "all persons" by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Title of the course: Literary Workshop: "Homoeroticism and Literature in Cuba" Tutor: Margarita Mateo, writer Hours: 3 per week Evaluation: three-paged paper at the end of the semester Description: Homoeroticism in Cuban literature: Its first manifestations. Brief panoramic view on the topic. Textual analysis of the works by Carlos Montenegro (novelist), Emilio Ballagas (poet), Ofelia Rodrguez Acosta (novelist), Virgilio Piera (poet, dramatist). The decade of the 1960s. Homoeroticism and the reconstruction of the Cuban nation. Aceptances and rejections. Homophobic Policies. Authors: Lezama Lima, Reynaldo Arenas, Severo Sarduy. Transvestism. The dark decade. Rebirth of the homoerotic theme. "Why is Leslie Caron Crying?" by Roberto Uras and "Dressed in a Wedding Gown" by Norge Espinosa. The decade of the 1990s. Textual analysis of the works by Senel Paz, Mercedes Santos Moray, Nelson Simn, Damaris Caldern. Homoeroticism and HIV: the short stories by Miguel ngel Fraga. Other approaches to homoeroticism and homophobia: Jorge ngel Prez, Pedro de Jess, Ena Luca Portela. The literature of the 21st century. Study of the texts by Legna Rodrguez and Amhel Echevarra.

Duration: 3 months Meeting Hours: 6 hours a week the first month, 4 hours a week the second month and 3 hours a week the last month. Instructors: Aracelis Garca (Gangy) & Roberto Garca As the ability to communicate depends largely on a good understanding of the culture, the Spanish course attempts to enhance students understanding, respect and appreciation for the rich traditions and customs of Cuba. The course tries to build the students' ability of language use, especially at a colloquial level, as well as on topics of daily conversation and current interest such as social life, family, culture, art, race, gender etc. The combination of Spanish classes and daily exchange at the students' home stays helps to provide the kind of language interaction in a real life situation that will permit them to expand the vocabulary and grammar studied in class and to develop some comfort speaking the Spanish language. Classes will focus on analyzing written articles, increasing vocabulary and having conversation and discussion in Spanish on various topics. Speakers will be invited to talk about their work. Documentary films and videos will be shown. Students will occasionally visit museums, cultural sites and performances and conduct small investigations on a cultural and social topic.